No longer a privacy issue

At the rate the infection to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is spreading across the entire Philippines, it was deemed necessary to expand the coverage of the so-called “community quarantine” Luzon-wide. In apparent efforts to tone down public panic, the government added the adjective “enhanced” to the “community quarantine” terminology which is nothing but euphemism for the word “lockdown.”

But no amount of sugarcoating can temper the truth that the dreaded COVID-19 infection cannot be contained without resorting to such drastic measures like a total lockdown. It was only last Saturday that President Rodrigo Duterte raised the public health emergency from Red Alert Sublevel 1 to Sublevel 2. On the same day, President Duterte approved also placing the entire national capital region (NCR) under “community quarantine” covering the 16 cities and one municipality comprising Metro Manila.

In yet another televised address to the nation, President Duterte announced last Monday night the so-called “enhanced community quarantine” that enforced more stringent measures to control the movement of people and expanded its coverage from NCR to the entire Luzon provinces. This was based on the latest set of recommendations submitted to President Duterte by the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases.

As the chairman of the Task Force, DOH Secretary Dr. Francisco Duque III justified the “enhanced community quarantine” as necessary because the Philippines now has community transmission of COVID-19. Much earlier, the World Health Organization (WHO) elevated COVID-19 from public health emergency of international concern to the level of pandemic when not less than 114 countries around the world have the contagion. In the specific case of the Philippines, Duque explained the COVID-19 cases so far recorded have “untraceable chain of transmission” because those who contracted it have no history of direct contact to COVID-19 carrier neither they have any history of travel abroad where there is infection.

Duque pointed to this as the reason for the sudden spike of positive COVID-19 cases that doubled overnight from a total of 64 Friday night to 111 last Saturday and fatalities rose to eight. This was from the first time the Philippines recorded its first three COVID-infection, all tourists from China who came here to spend the Chinese Lunar New Year in January. They all hailed from Wuhan, China – the identified epicenter of COVID-19.

It was the Duque-led Task Force that first recommended for President Duterte to sign and issue Proclamation 922 on March 8 and placed the entire Philippines under a “State of Public Health Emergency.” The President cited Section 7 of Republic Act (RA) 11332 as the law that vested the Chief Executive these powers when it “threatens national security” of the country. In Proclamation 922, the President invoked his powers under RA 11332 “to address the COVID-19 threat, including but not limited to mandatory reporting, intensify government response and measures, and enforce quarantine and disease control prevention measures.”

Last night, the President issued Proclamation 923 and placed the entire Philippines under a state of public calamity.

Despite these elevated danger levels, why is it our government officials are still too protective of the privacy of these COVID-19 patients? These COVID-positive carriers who remain unidentified were merely forced to undergo 14-day self-quarantine although they remain under DOH monitoring.

Why not make public who these COVID-19 positive infected people are?

The government should re-think this policy because this might be the best way to get all these possible COVID-19 infected people out in the open. Once they are informed who these confirmed COVID-19 patients are, the people will surely try to seek medical help and voluntarily submit themselves. Or the government is afraid state-run hospitals will be overwhelmed and private hospitals are not prepared to fill the slack? The DOH should be more forthcoming.

Apparently also, there is unfounded fear and wrong notion of social stigma if these confirmed COVID cases are made public. It ain’t so when you talk about the general public health welfare. If we really want to effectively put a stop to the continuing spread of this deadly and highly contagious flu-like disease, the right to privacy should be the least of priorities of the government.

Not knowing they had direct contact with these COVID-infected persons, they might be roaming and freely walking with the rest of humanity, because they are asymptomatic, or showing no signs of symptoms. During those times, they have already infected others because they did not know they got in contact with these COVID carriers that the government has already placed under its watch.

So why should the rest of us healthy people suffer the consequence of not knowing who these COVID-19 positive patients? The National Privacy Commission should be made accountable for sacrificing general public welfare over privacy acts of a few individuals. Who knows? If the NPC only checked with them, they may even be very willing to reveal their identities if only to help save others.

There will be less disruption of lives to the greater majority of healthy people having to deal with certain harebrained quarantine measures enforced. It’s simple economics principle, the greater good for the greatest number.

This will enable many of us to better protect ourselves if we are alerted who these COVID-positive patients we got in contact with. Health assistant secretary Dr. Maria Rosario Vergeire on Monday disclosed almost 40 percent of the patients tested positive for COVID-19 have no exposure to known infected cases.

And why is this? My guess is they didn’t know who the COVID-19 carriers are in the first place they might have gotten in contact with. The government calls upon us to sacrifice for the month-long only of community quarantine. It may sound unchristian but it’s not the practical sense, not even commonsense if the government continues to keep COVID-19 infection a privacy issue.